I had quite a fight with my charging system before our United. The
weird symptoms finally went away when I replaced the generator, two days
before heading for Portland. The volts and amps were happy on the trip
North, and while in Portland. However ten minutes into the trip home, I
suddenly noticed that the volts were down, and there was a slight
discharge indicated on the ammeter.
Panic Time! A return of the old symptoms? Yes! No, think about it, NO!
This was different, like the generator had just switched off.
Some quick mental math suggested I would get home OK, so I relaxed, sort
of. The generator had only about 4 hours on it. What else could it be?
Anyway, tonight I did continuity checks on the external wiring, then the
generator itself. The field was OK, but the output was open. With the
generator off the car, I could see things didn't look right around the
ground brush. AHA! The ground brush had shattered! Never heard of that
happening before.
So tomorrow morning, I'll find out what NAPA does about warranties on
generators.
Stu
|